‘Continuous interference’: Jaishankar on India invoking diplomatic parity with Canada

External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said India invoked diplomatic parity for Canada forcing the North American country to withdraw 41 of its diplomats, because of concerns about “continuous interference” in the country’s affairs by Canadian personnel.

“There’s this whole issue of parity that the size of how many diplomats there are of one country versus how many diplomats there are of the other country. Parity is very much provided for by the Vienna Convention, which is the relevant international rule on this”, the minister was quoted by ANI as saying.

“But in our case, we invoked parity because we had concerns about continuous interference in our affairs by Canadian personnel. We haven’t made much of that public. My sense is over a period of time more stuff will come out and people will understand why we had the kind of discomfort with many of them which we did”, he added.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.